Wrapping Up: Case Study Report

While visiting teaching my Family Studies/Human Development friend last night, she was telling me about her favorite teachers. She mentioned Sarah Coyne and told me that Dr. Coyne teaches a media class. I had no idea! Allie and I were excited to share our case study with her, yes, but after hearing that, also looked forward to learning about what Dr. Coyne's students have been up to - had projects similar to ours been in the works all semester long?!

The beauuutiful Alexandra Crafton (we need to take group pictures, group ;))

We had a great meeting with Dr. Coyne.  Allie gave a good overview of our case study, including our main goal/ideal of reaching out to families with education and encouragement. We told her about the iterative process of the project development as well as the changes we made to our choice of format along the way.  She said she knows exactly how sometimes things don't go exactly as we initially planned or would have liked (I felt very validated). Dr. Coyne commended us on our project- though I think she must be partial to our particular choice of focus in digital culture! She thought interacting directly with real families is a GREAT idea- and she told us about some of the things her students have been up to this semester. Different class, different projects- but a little bit of overlapping subject matter. (And her students, too, are required to create a blog and post two entries each week as well as read and comment on others' blogs. The focus of their writing is the media content they are exposed to each week and its potential effects.)

"Media, Family, and Human Development" (SFL 358) all about the effects of media on development - body image, relationships, violence, potential for connection, etc. positive and negative. She told us about some of the various lectures, including a guest speaker stay-at-home-mom who started her own business because of opportunities her blog allowed. Dr. Coyne's students created an ad campaign promoting the family that they put on YouTube that I want to check out. They have a semester-long content analysis project coding media for content related to families. Sounds like a class I would have loved to take in conjunction with this one! I got the syllabus from her, so I  have the reading list, at least. :)

We discussed the importance of connection when it comes to family interactions online - how beneficial it can be for parents to be able to "speak their kids' language" in the digital world. She has given presentations at conferences about media and the family and it is always refreshing for her when she meets parents really interested in immersing themselves in their kids' world online.

I'm very glad that Dr. Coyne agreed to meet with us. As a parent, educator, and researcher, she is fully invested in the issues that we've been exploring this semester.

After our meeting, I stumbled upon Dr. Coyne's blog that she uses for her class...Check it out at http://coynemedia.blogspot.com/2012/10/is-liking-status-prosocial.html (as well as links to her students' blogs).